


Hybrid: Origins

by geometrix



Series: Hybrids [1]
Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Hybrid AU, Hybrids, Longhorn!Ryan, Origins, RT Hybrid AU X, Rabbit!Ray, bird!gavin, bull!Ryan, bunny!Ray, cat!Michael, hybrid au x, lark!gavin, lion!Jack, ram!Geoff, rt hybrid AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-01
Updated: 2014-11-01
Packaged: 2018-02-23 12:54:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2548244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geometrix/pseuds/geometrix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A sickness that sweeps the office and takes employees out of work for months at a time, leaving them changed in a way beyond the point of return: it's the transformations that created them all. That turned the Achievement Hunters into hybrids.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm super hoping that this can serve as the basis/intro to a more serious/emotional series. Origins stories are great fun to read, but I'd like there to be more substance to the overall story. And definitely to write something longer than this 'short' fic.

Things just didn't seem to look any better. At least the last month, maybe even the last two, had been excruciatingly slow. People hadn't been themselves. There was a strange electricity in the air that was becoming so normal that the employees were beginning to see it as home. No one had really mentioned how they'd felt in recent times, but everyone could sense that everyone else felt the same, and so it was as if everybody had silently mutually agreed to get on with it. 

The problem was, no one had really felt 'sick' enough to take any time off. It wasn't really a sickness. People had just felt a bit.. apathetic. No one came into work anymore with the same lust for life anymore. It was like the Achievement Hunter office had been replaced with six people who didn't know, and didn't care, about each other.

Their videos over the past seven-ish weeks had really lacked enthusiasm, and other than mandatory filming time, the only real communication the office members shared was when passing a box of painkiller pills to one another to dull out the mild headaches and other aches that people had been suffering for God knows how long. 

Geoff desperately wished he could dismiss everyone for a week or two. Dragging them all back through the meat-grinder of working life every day was never going to help. But, when you game for a living, RSI was to be expected, and the regular popping of pills was really expected in this sort of career. Sometimes the old carpal tunnel just didn't feel too good, and eye strain could really be a bitch.

There were days when the guys just desparately wished they could trade their month-long dull, throbbing headaches for maybe one migraine. Just get it done and over with, and get back to work. They were all, after all, best friends and team mates. And they all truly did want to get back to being that. But it was as if exhaustion caught up with them before they could even open their mouths to speak.

And besides, the headaches had really brought on toothache in the last couple of weeks, too. Well, for Michael and Jack, at least. Neither knew about the other having these symptoms, but both just individually put it down to a consequence of the headaches. And maybe a bit of comfort eating. Since work was no fun anymore, they had to find solace in something else, right? Something that could pass the time.

To their knowledge, they were all suffering from the same mild headache. They'd all thought it was flu. But each man in the office was beginning to get more questionable aches and pains. It was worrying, really. They all thought they were the only ones. Everyone else has flu, but I've got something maybe worse? It was a common thought.

Gavin, for example, couldn't stop trying to massage his shoulder blades against the back of his chair. He didn't have much beef over it though: he'd always sat with shit posture, and much akin to his parents' past warnings, it had eventually caught up with him. It was a bit uncomfortable, though, because his coccyx hurt as well, and that meant a lot of shuffling about on his chair, and act which welcomed the occasional tut. Particularly from Geoff.

In fact, all of the guys in the office had started to get pains in their lower backs, from anywhere between a week ago to the previous day. They all had it, it's just, they could all sit still, unlike Gavin.

For a few weeks now, maybe about half the time since the flu-ish headaches began, Jack, Ray and Michael had experienced occasional waves of shocking earache, the kind that makes you screw your eyes up because it hurts too bad, and then a second later, it's over. Geoff and Ryan had been experiencing the same symptoms, and it was either that they'd been experiencing them for a much shorter time, or they hadn't really noticed because their headaches were really intensifying. 

No one knew, but both men had passed out at least once in the last two days because of them. But, y'know, flu can get bad. And the humidity and electric of the air was never going to have helped. 

The first time there was any volunteered speaking in the room was when Michael's phone started buzzing on his desk next to him. Gavin would normally start teasing him about who it could be, but he just looked at the phone, looked at Michael, and then back to his screen.

Michael picked it up, aware that everyone in the room metaphorically had an ear turned towards him. 

'Hello?' he said, looking around at his peers who were pretending to be too involved in their work to be listening.

Michael's voice suddenly softened at the response he got down the phone. 'Sure, I can come. Yeah, honey. Yeah I'll check with Geoff.'

Geoff turned around, acting like Michael's attention towards him was a complete unexpected surprise. 

It turned out that while Lindsay had been staying with her parents for the week, she'd begun to feel kind of shitty and just wanted to go home, and needed Michael to pick her up from the airport. Geoff usually liked to play 'mean boss' on this sort of issue and act like no one was allowed to leave, but he just wasn't up to it, and waved Michael off with a, 'Yeah, man. Just go.'

Another couple of weeks passed, and the attitude in the room was not getting better, while the empty boxes of paracetamol had been tossed aside, most of the guys now had some form of stronger prescription painkiller by their side. Ryan and Geoff would have to take frequent breaks from working as their headaches got worse and worse, and Jack, Michael and Ray often had to step outside to air out the nausea that would fill their lungs. 

Whereas before it seemed they all had a stupid flu that they didn't need to address, things were getting worse, and it was probably important that they stopped pretending that the problem wasn't there.

So one day, after Michael and Jack came back in from a breather they'd taken outside, Geoff called everyone together to discuss what was going on. 

'Okay,' he sighed, as everyone took their seats. He closed his eyes and adjusted himself a little, as his head throbbed at every move of his mouth he made. 

'This is getting a little ridiculous. This office has turned to shit since everyone started getting "flu" a couple months ago.' He looked away. Everyone was slightly taken aback when he made the inverted commas sign in the air with his fingers - they'd all thought they were the only ones who doubted that is was 'just the flu'. 

'Well, what do you want, Geoff?' Michael said bluntly. 'You want us all to take a three month vacation to get better, and come back like nothing happened?'

'Yeah, it's not as if we're not doing our jobs,' Jack chimed in.

'Yeah, but we're doing our jobs like a bunch of dicks who've never even seen a videogame in their life!' Geoff retorted. To be honest, he was in so much pain these days, and just didn't want to feel like he was the only one. 

There was an empty pause in the room, before Geoff aimed from another angle.

'We haven't even spoken about what's going on here. I mean, I know why I feel like shit, but I don't know why you guys feel like shit.'

'Aw, a heart-to-heart,' Ray said sarcastically, half to himself.

'No,' Geoff said. He wasn't no agony aunt. He just wanted to know what was wrong with them, so maybe he could buy some appropriate medicine and get them all back to themselves again. Three months without knowing what had been wrong, and he was finally sick of it. He wanted everyone to stop feeling like crap.

'So Gavin,' he managed to say, although it was clear from his voice that his head was beginning to pound again. He reached for one of his prescription-strength pills and downed it with some water. 'What's up with you?'

Gavin looked a bit shy, and fiddled with something on his desk. To be honest, all his aches and pains had been a bit different from the others' - at least as far as he could tell, anyway. He'd had headaches, but they hadn't progressed from when the started months ago. They were just there in the background, being slightly annoying. Really, his main source of pain had been his back. It was beginning to take him a long time manoeuvring himself around: getting in and out of chairs, bed, the shower. His lower back ached like he couldn't believe, and he knew it wasn't just from sitting with bad posture. His shoulder blades, too, felt like they were being forced about. Before he'd felt ill, he'd been going to the gym more, and he'd liked to try and convince himself that it was because he was getting ripped. But of course that wasn't true. Of course that wasn't true. He didn't know what was true, though. 

'It's not just that, either,' he mumbled, after talking about where it hurt. 'I feel like I've got permanent heartburn, too. Like my chest is so tight all the time. But it's just stupid, because I can't stretch out, because it will just hurt my back like crazy.'

He felt a twinge in his hands. Oh yeah, he'd forgotten about that.

Random parts of his body had suffered strange twinges every now and then. Like, dull aches coupled with small, sharp pains. It was like how he'd always imagined arthritis to feel. But he wasn't really one to crack his knuckles, so he had no idea where it had come from. Someone had told him once that if you had bone problems you should consume a lot of calcium, so he'd been downing milk like nobody's business recently, and it seemed to be helping.

Everyone looked at him slightly oddly. It seemed no one else had matching symptoms, and it made Gavin feel very concerned for his safety. All of them could be brought down to daily things. People will desk jobs often had back problems and headaches, and it wasn't uncommon for them to get carpal tunnel syndrome or some kind of bone issue as a result of RSI, or bad dieting. But the pain and the intensity and the length of time this had been happening for made Gavin very much doubt it was just a 'desk job thing'.

It was Michael's turn to talk next, and he began before Geoff even had to prompt him. 

The only similarity between his and Gavin's problems was that they both had lower back ache, but Michael's was quite acute, but still felt dull and achey. Other than that, he'd been suffering a lot of eye strain, right in the back of his eyes, and his balance had been way off. He assumed he'd had some kind of ear infection, as he kept hearing high pitches - a symptom similar to that of Tinnitus. But his ears were inflamed and tender, too. Also, recently he'd found it increasingly hard to type, as his fingers kept getting sharp shoots of pain along them every time he put pressure on them. It was like someone was jabbing needles under his nails and asking him to use them like normal.

'And you said a couple weeks ago Lindsay was sick too?' Geoff said.

It was true, Lindsay had been getting worse as well. But Michael had insisted she stay home. The content coming from Achievement Hunter right now was slow, and they didn't necessarily need the extra editor, and she was done acting for RWBY for this volume. He didn't want his wife in as much pain as he was starting to realise he was in.

'She feels pretty much exactly the same,' he said. 'Although, we both have something that Gavin doesn't.'

He went on to tell the guys how his front teeth were really starting to hurt. Like his wisdom teeth were growing in all over again, and Lindsay had the same.

'It's like everything's inflamed,' he moaned. 'Everything huuuuurts.'

Ray didn't want to say much about his. He didn't like to talk about himself feeling bad, and preferred to make jokes about it instead. But he wasn't up for jokes at the moment, and just mumbled, 'I'm pretty much the same as Michael. Oh, but, minus the tooth thing. My teeth are fine.'

Geoff turned to Jack, who was next to him. 'Alright, what about you?' 

Jack nodded to Michael. 'He nailed it, to honest. Although, he didn't mention the itching. I mean, I don't know if he has it, but I got bad itching. All round my neck and under my beard and stuff. My skin is burning, dude. Literally. No creams or lotions have helped. Also, has anyone else felt more tired than usual?'

No one said anything. Michael piped up with, 'Actually, I've found it harder to sleep, I've felt way more awake than I used to. And then in the morning I'm like "Aw shit, why didn't I sleep", but I'm literally not getting that tired.'

'Huh,' Jack said, and turned back to his screen.

'Ryan, how about you, buddy?' Geoff leaned back so he could see Ryan, whose head was rested on the desk and his arms around it. He grunted, and tried to lift himself up to look at Geoff. His eyes were bloodshot from keeping them shut for too long, and his head felt disgustingly thick and heavy with aching. 

He sighed deeply, and hauled himself up to a sitting position, taking a glass of water as he did. 

'Similar lower back pains to you all, but my..' he paused a second to screw his eyes up and gently touch his head just above his ear. 'My head is killing me. I've tried every painkiller except driving a fucking drill into my temples.' He muffled his face with his hands, but you could just hear him say, 'Maybe I'll try that later.'

'Man, I'm with you, Ryan,' Geoff said. It was pretty much his turn to talk anyway. 'My head is killing me. Like I've never known pain like it, dude. I've passed out four times this week just 'cause of it.'

'Six,' he heard Ryan say from amongst the mess of his arms wrapped around his head.

'Jesus,' Jack said to himself.

There was a pause.

'So.. Like.. What the fuck?' Jack said. 

'I don't know, dude. But flu lasts for, like, two weeks. At most. I've increasingly felt like shit for the last three months.' Geoff took another swig of water. He just wanted this all to be over. 

He did take comfort in the fact that his symptoms were shared with Ryan. They were both experiencing the same back pains and head pains. Although, Ryan seemed to be taking it harder. It seemed Jack, Ray and Michael all had each other as well. But Gavin.. Gavin seemed a little bit alone in all of this. 

So maybe they all had different illnesses? Who knows. But at least they'd talked about it, rather than pretending nothing was happening. Geoff felt like that was enough. He turned off his monitor, and just told everyone to go home. 

Everyone managed to get out the room, except Gavin. Geoff followed them all out so he could get access to some emergency funds for the guys to get taxis home. As if he was going to let any of them get themselves home. He knew Ray didn't drive, but he felt it was safer if he could just get home as soon as, rather than waiting around for Tina, or getting Kdin to take him.

Geoff went back into the office. Gavin was sitting in his chair with his legs pulled up to his chest, picking at something on his desk.

'What's up, buddy?' Geoff said, leaning in the doorway.

Gavin looked at the floor, and then turned to look up at his boss. He sighed, and pulled his legs off his chair, back to the ground. 'I just..' he said, trying to figure out what he was next going to say.

Geoff could see tears start to well up in Gavin's eyes, and so he took the seat next to him - cautiously, to prevent hurting his lower back - and looked at him.

'Is it because the guys all feel different to you?' he asked.

Gavin wiped his eyes before the tears had a chance to roll down his face. 'Yeah,' he sighed. 'Everyone else is just, oh! Bad headache. Oh! My ears feel kind of weird. I'm just like, well my entire back feels like it's going to break every time I move it. Does anyone else have that? No they fucking don't.' His breathing got a little more worked up, which resulted in him coughing violently to stop the pain in his chest. Geoff put a hand on his knee.

'You want me to take you home?' he suggested. Gavin bit his knuckle, and then decided that, yeah, if he was going to get home at all, Geoff was probably the best person to go with right now. 

He agreed, and slowly, painfully, got up, and followed Geoff out the room.


	2. Chapter 2

Now the Achievement Hunters were more okay with admitting that they were all feeling ill, they were more okay with asking for time out from work to attempt to recover. A week had passed since they'd had their little heart-to-heart, and it turned out their little domestic issue wasn't so domestic anymore. 

Respectable newspapers and scientific reports were being released about a surge in demand for high-strength painkillers, and pharmaceutical companies were under high pressure to produce new strains of drugs for the growing problem. Apparently people all over the world were suffering from stress and pain and had been for months now. It was only now that it was becoming a non-taboo issue. It seemed that in a world full of hypochondriacs, no one wanted to seem hypochondriac.

The only people in the office right now were Michael, Ray, Geoff and Jack. Michael, Ray and Jack were experiencing overwhelming waves of nausea and stomach pains, as well as incredibly painful ear problems. But, they all continued to force themselves into work, because they knew, if they pushed themselves, they could work. Michael and Ray had begun to experience what Jack had previously described, with the itching. But not around their faces, more behind their ears and across the back of their hips, near their tailbone. Jack and Michael's teeth were beginning to get so tender that they really had to bring in blended mush for their lunch. 

Gavin had been off since the day after their talk. His back was absolutely killing him. At home, he'd stashed loads of food by his bed, and had wound himself up in his sheets, making himself a little nest. It meant he didn't have to move, and he could try to forget about whatever was going on with him. The problem was, it had gotten much worse in the last six days. So much so, he was too afraid to contact even Geoff about it. He'd sworn Meg to secrecy. It was like he had a permanent hunch now. Between his shoulder blades, there was something pushing against his skin, and he had no idea what. He just knew it hurt more than he could compute. It felt the same on his lower back. Where his tail bone booped the underside of his skin, it was like four more of those were pushing up next to it. He just wanted it to end. 

Ryan, on the other hand, had only been off for four days so far. He'd come in the day after the discussion, hardly able to open his eyes and stumbling about a lot, until Jack had finally managed to catch him and lie him down on the sofa. They'd had to give him ice for his head, which seemed a little bit lumpy, like he'd hit it really hard, or even like a hernia. Later on that day he'd managed to get a slight hold of himself and sit at his desk, but he looked grim. The day after that, he'd come in, slightly to Geoff's annoyance. He didn't want Ryan to put himself through that again, and when he'd fainted after attempted to greet Geoff, right in the middle of the room, Geoff had decided that was enough for him. So now he was at home, battling the excruciating pain blasting through his skull. The pain in his coccyx was unbelievable, but it didn't even compare. 

Geoff made sure to send them news updates that he saw regarding the epidemic. Pandemic warnings were being made, and if you dug deep enough online you could find reports of people in the Mediterranean whose bodies had been.. permanently affected by their illnesses. He wasn't about to just go on believing random European news sites that had a pop up for every breath you took, though. 

As much as they got on his nerves really, very frequently, Geoff just wanted his boys to be okay.

But only a few days later was Geoff in just as bad a state as Ryan. He couldn't get out of bed, his head hurt so much, and Griffon stayed in with him to help apply ice packs to his temples every minute. It seemed to be a cycle with him: moan in pain, pass out from pain, wake up and repeat. 

The only thing that interrupted it was when their phone started ringing. Griffon had to leave Geoff momentarily to get it, feeling guilty as she did. The caller ID showed Ryan's name. Griffon was confused - Ryan was immobile. Why was he just calling for a chat?

But when the voice on the other end sounded distinctly feminine, she realised it wasn't Ryan. It was his wife. And she had some worrying news.

As soon as the phone call was over, Griffon snatched the nearest laptop she could find. It was Geoff's, and not her own, but it didn't really matter right now. She had to get onto the news websites to confirm everything. And there they all were: The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, BBC News. They were all illuminated with the breaking news of what was actually happening to these people who'd been experiencing these symptoms for anywhere up to six months long. Behind hyperlinks and external webpages lied gruesome photographs of people whose bodies had done everything Griffon had just heard on the phone.

What Ryan's wife had found when checking on him that morning was confirmation that this nightmare was all true. The first thing she'd done was check on his head, hoping that the swelling had gone down. And it hadn't. But the skin was broken now and the blood in his matted hair was the first warning sign. Two tiny white spikes had been poking through the skin, not visible from afar, but once his hair had been parted, they were very clear. His ears were different too, apparently. Something that they hadn't noticed beforehand, mainly because his pain elsewhere had caused them to overlook whatever had happened here. But they were longer, and covered in red sores where, after running her finger tenderly over them, she'd felt short, blunt hairs just under the skin. And then there had been the next shock. 

What she'd told Griffon was that, in an attempt to remain calm, she'd gotten up to go and get her equipment. Yes, she wasn't a doctor, but she was a vet. And that meant she could probably do something. But then something caught her eye. 

In his uncomfortable sleep, Ryan had obviously been scratching his back. Something was irritating him. And on further inspection, it was clear why. It made the whole situation of painfully aching backs clear. Caught underneath his clothing was an appendage that reached his mid thigh, covered in the same red sores as his ears. 

It was a shock she couldn't process. It was something Griffon couldn't process on the phone. Especially knowing that Geoff had the exact same symptoms as Ryan. Tears filled her eyes as she scrolled through the pages and pages of similar news. People across the world after months of aches and pains and problems were finally having something to show for it. And the experts had warned that just because something is beginning to show now, doesn't mean that it's done. People sprouting tails now could still be waiting for them to finish growing in two months' time. 

Griffon wanted to be back at Geoff's side. And when she got there, she never wanted to leave his side again. She didn't want him to be alone in this. 

Which made her think of the others.

One by one, she decided to call the other four who she'd not yet contacted. First was Michael. When it picked up, she heard some scraping, and then a very weak, feeble voice say, 'Hello? Geoff?'

'Uh, no, Michael, it's Griffon.'

'Ah.. Hey,' Michael coughed out. 

Griffon tried to find out what she could about what was going on with Michael. From what she'd gathered, his ears were in a lot of pain and he was about two metres from the phone on loudspeaker. His back also hurt a lot. So she told him about what had happened to Ryan.

Michael felt a sinking in his heart. He hated thinking that something so extreme had happened to one of his friends, and yet he knew that something similar was happening to both himself and his wife. And now he thought about it, Ray and Jack had complained about similar symptoms to him.

And the truth was, Michael wasn't too far behind Ryan. His tailbone had definitely extended some, and was unbelievably painful, but he didn't think it was done. His ears had gone through a lot. They'd changed shape a lot, and were slowly moving. His sense of balance was all over the place, but that was almost to be expected. And everything was so itchy, like the feeling you got if you shaved too close as the hairs tried to get back through the skin. Also, there was his teeth. Like a child's, his upper and lower canines had been wobbly over the last few days, and last night, finally two had popped out. Below where his teeth had been were hard lumps. Looked like the tooth fairy had an errand to run for him.

And then there was the thing he hadn't really told anyone about, not even Lindsay. Partly because it was easy to hide, but partly because it was really embarrassing. He'd never really been one to grow facial hair, so when he suddenly began to find little transparent hairs on his upper lip and cheeks, he'd been really fucking confused. But when they grew faster than your average beard, he had to get rid of them. Because he knew exactly what they were.

Griffon thanked Michael for his help, and went on to dial in the next number, all the while patting a cold, damp cloth over Geoff's forehead with her free hand. He wasn't making any noise anymore, but really only because the pain was drifting him in and out of consciousness. 

The phone beeped through to a voice Griffon hadn't heard before. 

'Uh, hello? Is Ray there?' she said, confused. 

She heard shifting at the end of the phone, and a door close. This was followed by the new voice sounding much clearer, and a little quieter. 

'He is, but he's not available,' the girl at the end of the phone said. 'I'm Tina, I'm with Ray. So, I mean.. He's a little ill right now so I'm just taking care of him. Who is this again?'  
'I'm Griffon. I'm Geoff's wife. And I, uh, I know about Ray. Well, I mean, I don't know the details, actually I was wondering if you could tell me. But all of the guys are down with this thing. And when I say down,' she looked quickly at her husband lying unconscious on the sofa. 'I mean, almost six feet under. Also, I don't know if you've been reading the news, but there seems to be some kind of wave of it crossing the globe. I just.. I just hope Ray is okay?'

There was a silence at the end of the phone, followed by a sharp gasp, like someone catching up with a sudden overwhelming emotion. Tina started to cry at the end of the phone.  
'Sweetie, are you okay?' Griffon said, suddenly concerned. She didn't know Tina, but she knew it must be hard for her. It was hard for Griffon, too. But she wasn't quite as young as Tina sounded. 

'I'm sorry, I'm sorry,' she heard at the end of the phone. 'It's just hard, and I knew Ray was ill but I didn't realise it was so bad. And I'd seen this stuff on the news and I hoped it wasn't what he had, but he'd been ill for over three months. And then I couldn't tell anyone, but when he's in pain I just don't know what to do. I just have to stay by his side, but he's..' she broke off momentarily. 'He's undergoing a lot of changes, and I just don't..'

Griffon stayed on the phone with Tina for a good while. It sounded like she needed a lot of support, and of course Griffon wanted Ray to have as much help as he could. From what she'd gathered, Ray's back wasn't in a lot of pain anymore, and Tina thought the elongation into a tail was done. It had increased from the regular human length by a few inches or so, but that was about it. Really, it was his ears that were hurting.

After a long chat with Caiti, it appeared that Jack's symptoms were shockingly similar to Michael's now. Their progress through their, uh, changes were pretty much on par, and that meant that the information that Caiti and Griffon shared between themselves was a little more useful. Before hanging up, Caiti had agreed to give Michael a call so they could 'compare notes', as it were. In such a terrifying situation, Griffon was slightly jealous that those two had each other to compare. It was similar for Geoff and Ryan, she supposed, but Ryan's problems were days ahead of her husband's, and there was nothing to say that they were completely the same anyway. 

It was time to make the last call. After that, she could focus all her attention of Geoff, making sure he was as okay as he could be. Trying to make him as comfortable as possible, even though it was as if his skull was shattering inside him. 

After a few rings the phone picked up. 

'Geoff, now isn't really a good time,' came Meg's voice at the end of the phone.

'It isn't Geoff,' Griffon said. 'Geoff's currently lying on the sofa incapacitated by pain. So. He's a bit preoccupied.' Her tone was blunt. 

Meg contemplated what Griffon had just said, and although it was awful and terrifying what was happening to Geoff, she was too focused on what was taking place in her own home right now. And despite Griffon's dry tone, Meg felt less alone: Griffon wouldn't have talked to her like that if the same thing weren't happening to Geoff right now.

'How's Geoff's back?' she said quietly. Gavin had really taken a turn for the worst, and any advice would be appreciated.

'His back? As in, near his ass?' Geoff's tailbone had been clearly causing him problems, but other than that his back was fine.

'No, Griffon. Like.. his back back. As in, between the shoulders, below the neck back.' The rising panic in Meg's voice suggested that Gavin was experiencing something that Griffon hadn't been seeing in Geoff. 

And he really, really had been. Right now Gavin was hunched over his knees on the floor, his back arched up because it was the most comfortable position he could find, although saying that was a massive overstatement. He'd been wailing for hours now at the pain shooting through his back. It was way too obvious what was happening to him now, and he had absolutely no way of stopping it. But he just didn't want it to continue.

Meg had tried all she could with him, but she just didn't know how to react. She couldn't stop him from feeling how he was feeling, but at the same time she was so spooked that it was sometimes hard to even approach Gavin. Because what the hell was happening to him? What the hell was happening to her boyfriend.

The ground around Gavin as covered in down, like someone had burst a pillow over him. Where his shoulder blades and back had been in such bad pain before, a bony, fleshy mass had pushed its way through to the surface. It had burned with an itching sensation, until short, sharp pins had pushed their way through the skin. And that's when the feathers had started appearing everywhere.

Griffon was left speechless at the end of her phone. Geoff was squirming around on the sofa behind her, trying to touch the bumps on his head, that were beginning to leave a little bit of blood in his hair, but the bumps were itchy and very, very sore. Griffon crushed some sleeping pills into Geoff's drink. She didn't want him to have to be awake and experiencing this pain if she could help it. Despite the overwhelming pain in his head, somehow the pills managed to send Geoff off, and soon he was lying unconscious on the sofa. Griffon looked down at him, a sadness sweeping across her at the acknowledgement that her husband was In a better state when he wasn't awake. When his mind was turned off. When he wasn't there.


	3. Chapter 3

Days passed, and it was now clear that a lot of the staff at Rooster Teeth weren't going to be coming in like normal. The Achievement Hunters had been the first, and none of them had come back to work yet. Kerry had sorted out a schedule of stored videos that could be set to upload throughout the week while there was no one in to film any new content, but the day after he'd done that, he too had had to stay off of work. 

Everyone was in such a state at home. Through what contact they could have amongst themselves, it was kind of accepted that they were all going through a similar thing, even if they didn't all know the details of each others' sicknesses. Griffon had tried to relay the information to Geoff about Gavin, but he was too out of it to fully understand. She and Laurie had kept in contact as much as they could, since it was clear that Geoff and Ryan were going through very similar things. 

At this point, the small spikes that had broken the skin on the sides of Ryan's head had grown a couple of inches. The pain was still a big issue for him, since the full girth of the horns was wider than the tip, which was all that had so far grown through. Like Geoff, he was too incapacitated to fully understand the situation, and it was unclear as to whether he was even aware of the new additions to his anatomy. One of the worrying parts about it was whether or not they would continue to grow. A small mutation could be easy to conceal, but if the horns grew much more, it would be very hard for Ryan to coexist in a regular society, and that wasn't even considering the effect the weight of them might have on his brain.

His tail had seemed to have stopped growing. The main issue in that department now was the incessant itchiness of it, as hair began to grow from the new appendage. Most of it was short and brittle, yet quite smooth and soft. It was almost exactly the same colour as his hair colour, but small speckles of white made their way into it. Right at the end, thinner, longer hairs had started to grow, these darker than his natural hair colour. Right now there were only a few, but it was likely that by the end of all of this, a whole tuft would be there. 

Ray had spent his days off trying to knock himself out with whatever concoction of sleeping pills he could get his hands on. Luckily, Tina was able to prevent him from actually killing himself with some dangerous mixture, but she understood why he wanted to be unconscious so much. All she could do, though, was sit by his side, hold his hand, stroke his matted hair and rub his back. 'It's all gonna be okay, Ray,' she'd say in a broken voice, unsure whether or not he was even awake to hear her. She'd always be too scared to move her hand down to the base of his spine, where his new features had already made themselves a home: a tiny tail with a rapidly growing forest of fluff on it flicked every now and then. She was scared. She didn't want to see these alien, animal parts on her boyfriend. But if he couldn't escape this then what right had she? 

Michael and Lindsay had both had each other, although that meant that when one needed support from an outsider, it wasn't there. If one was in pain, if one was sick, if one wanted nothing more than to curl up and die, the other was never there to help them through it. Because the other one would always be by their side going through exactly the same.

So if someone had walked into their apartment, they might have assumed a murder. Michael and Lindsay were both lying motionless on the floor, a mess of cloths, medicine, and clothes surrounded them. They weren't asleep thanks to medicine. Both had tried to stay awake to prevent a feeling of isolation. But after hours of hoarse screaming and wasted tears, they'd exhausted themselves so much they just couldn't hold onto consciousness any longer. Both had about half a tail draped across their legs, no hair yet grown in, but the redness of the skin showed that that wouldn't be true for long.

If they were awake, they'd have felt nothing but pain resonating through their heads from their ears. It was a change that all of the Achievement Hunters were feeling.

All except Gavin, that was. All of Gavin's problems began and ended at his back. He was lucky he had Meg with him to keep him company, but to be honest, the feeling was so extreme that he didn't know if he'd feel any different even if she weren't there. Nonetheless, she wanted to be there for him. By his side.

Meg was terrified. It was like watching a cartoon where a human would suddenly burst into a dragon or bird form, wings erupting from their back. Except there was more blood, more pain, and a lot less of the classic Disney wonder that she'd known and loved as a child. All she could see was the mess of a once-man screaming into a pillow as his anatomy shifted and grew and burst from his back. Some of the pins that were sticking through his skin were finally growing into full feathers, and there was down everywhere. Meg would occasionally try to take Gavin's hand to let him know she was there, but only for him to yank it away and curl in on himself. 

Jack was primarily feeling the pain elsewhere. His front canines had come out, and he could feel the small nubs of two new ones on their way down. Except they were much sharper from what he remembered of teething when he was a kid. Nevertheless, it still just felt like teething. His back hurt somewhat from his tail growing in, but its progress was pretty much the same as Ryan's. It itched from the fur forcing its way through the skin, and the end of the tail began sprouting longer, softer hairs. 

But none of this was his main problem. His main problem was his inability to eat, move, live, without feeling like he was going to vomit everywhere. His stomach was in a perpetual state of discomfort and pain, and even the smallest movement encouraged his insides to try and throw themselves up. He had no idea what was going on, and he just wanted it to end. By night he'd find himself hungry on the point of fainting, and yet whenever he tried to eat, it would just come back up. Within a week he'd lost more weight than he had in the previous six months put together. It was incredibly worrying, as if the new body parts weren't already.

So Achievement Hunter was suffering. And it didn't look like it was going to end any time soon.


	4. Chapter 4

A month went by, and no one had been into work. Once the backlog of videos that had been pre-prepared in case of emergency was bled dry, other Rooster Teeth staff members had tried to fill the gap. Joel and Adam had double the output of How To videos, the podcast crew tried to spend any spare time they had from their packed schedules to film extra Let's Plays, and until they too had had to leave work for health reasons, Matt and Jeremy had worked overtime to put out as much content as they could.

The silence from the employees was scary. Burnie would sit with his fingers twitching over his phone every day, hoping that one of the six would call to say they were coming in. To confirm they weren't dead. Diseases being spoken about on the news terrified him every time an anchor opened their mouths to talk about it. He didn't even know what all these new health scares were: virtually no one did. It was like a nationwide scare that no one understood. 

He was losing all his hope of the guys being okay. Until one day he got a call from Geoff. 

He didn't care that he was in the middle of an important conversation with Matt regarding the company. He didn't care that sensitive information was being shared between the two. One of their best friends, who'd been off work ill for in excess of a month was finally contacting them. He new exactly where his priorities were in that moment.

'GEOFF?' Burnie half-screamed down the phone, pulling himself outside the room. He did so as Barbara just happened to be passing in the corridor, but upon hearing her colleague's name being spoken, she stopped dead in her tracks. Was Geoff okay?

She came up to Burnie, and just looked at him. She didn't need an explanation, she just wanted to hear him talk on the phone, desperate for some news. Maybe she could pass it on to Meg, who'd taken time off of her busy Carer of Gavin schedule to come into work that day.

Burnie could hear Geoff's raspy, broken voice on the other side of the phone. The signal was a bit crappy, and it sounded like Geoff was on loudspeaker, but sitting in a really bad position for it.

'Buddy, are you okay?' Burnie said, concerned. He was happy that Geoff had called him, and all, but he didn't want him forcing himself to speak to him if it was going to make him worse.

'I'm gonna come back, man,' Geoff managed to say. His throat sounded shot, but he sounded like he was at least attempting to be of his normal demeanour. 

'You what? Geoff, are you sure you're up for that? I mean, your voice sounds like you just shoved a bag of dicks down your throat. You sound god-awful. Why are you coming back in?'

'I don't need to stay at home any more. I mean, it still hurts.' Geoff was speaking slowly. He didn't know how much Burnie knew about the situation. He also knew that if he tried to speak too quickly, he'd start to feel unbalanced. 'You'll see when I get there. But I just know for sure, I'm better than I was.'

Burnie paused. 'Uh, I mean, okay. But what about the others? I mean, how are Jack, and Ryan, and Gav, y'know? Are they coming in too?'

'Jack's gonna come in too. He's okay now. Gav and Ryan, maybe not. Gav's problems aren't over, and Ryan has got a lot to deal with right now. Michael and Lindsay should be in soon, though,' he said the last bit a bit more upbeat, so that not everything sounded really depressing.

Geoff had managed to speak to all the guys. It had taken weeks, but he'd finally managed to lift his head again. Finally managed to see through the pain. He still had to be very careful. The horns that had started to make their way through the skin were only small right now, but he could tell by the constant dull ache that they were still growing. His ears were done. He hated them. They were long, and had fur [although, not quite as fluffy as his tail]. He and Griffon had had a long talk about it. Griffon was cool, but not everyone would be, and if random people in the street were to see some random dude with animal ears, a tail, little horns, and a very suspicious moustache, who knows how they'd react. They'd had to talk about how they were gonna deal with it. But really, the relief Griffon felt about Geoff's health allowed her to overlook any changes that had happened to her husband. He was still Geoff. He was still Geoff Ramsey. 

The first person Geoff had contacted was Jack, since there were already messages left on his phone from Jack when he finally got himself to check. The only thing was, Geoff assumed Jack had gone through the same as him, and was slightly taken aback when, after he asked tentatively 'How's your head,' Jack had replied with, 'Uh, it's fine actually. I mean, my ears hurt for a bit there, but other than that I'm absolutely fine.'

Still, Geoff continued, holding the phone away from his face slightly, so as not to knock the very tender horns. 'Yeah, sucks having them, right? They're so long, and ugh. Everything my dick couldn't be.'

Jack laughed at the joke, but nervously, since he didn't actually know what Geoff was talking about. 'Good one. But long? I mean they're definitely different, but long?' 

Jack checked himself out in the mirror, still on the phone. His ears had twisted and contorted and had moved up his face slightly, but they were still about the same size as his human ears, despite being a different shape. 

'Geoff, I don't think you and I are having the same problem here,' he said. There was silence. Jack was about to speak again to prompt Geoff, but was cut off by Geoff's broken and irritated voice. 

'Well then what the hell is your problem? So you don't have horns growing out the side of your head?' He'd put it bluntly because he didn't want any shit from Jack. 

'Horns?' Jack laughed. 'No? Just the ears and tail and, well, I think at some point teeth. But they're still growing in. I'll tell you what, though,' he continued. 'My taste in food has gone completely fucked up. I am eating so much more meat than I used to, and I mean, you probably think I'm joking when I say that. But no, seriously. '

'Wow,' Geoff said bluntly. 'You're fuckin' weird, dude. Teeth? I just got these dumbass ears and fluffy tail thing, and, like I said. I got these horns.' He sighed, having found himself a mirror to look at himself in. They were only really little nubs right now, but they were facing backward, and Geoff could almost tell that they were going to get way, way bigger.

'Yeah, I don't think this is gonna be over for me for a long while.'

'Are you okay, though?' It was comforting to Geoff that Jack cared more about his well-being than his deformity. Although, Geoff did secretly kinda like the horns. Once they were grown out he was gonna look bad ass.

'Pretty much,' he said. He still felt lightheaded and he had a headache obviously from where the horns were growing, but the excruciating pain was over, and it seemed that nothing else was growing in. Like, no hooves or weird patches of fur anywhere. That was a good thing.

'What about the others,' came Jack's next, more nervous question. The others had taken time out of work before him, and as far as he was aware, they hadn't yet gone back. He was worried for his friends, but also interested in what had happened to them. Geoff sighed. 'I don't know dude, I'm gonna try call Ryan now. I know Griffon has spoken to Laurie but that was weeks ago, and we haven't heard from him since.'

Jack sounded concerned. 'Oh, yeah man. You should do that. Text me when you know what's up.' 

They each hung up, and Geoff started scrolling through his contacts, looking for Ryan's name. He had to take a seat while he did, since standing was proving to be a bit of a chore. He might be okay enough to move about now, but he still wasn't up to his peak physical condition, and caution was clearly still needed.

The phone kept ringing, and Geoff was pretty sure Ryan wasn't going to pick up. Until the last ring, when he heard a click of the call going through, and some shuffling. He heard a mumble of 'Wait, let me put you on loud speaker.' It sounded like Ryan, except a more sick, broken version.

'Ryan? Hello?' Geoff said. 

'Yeah, yeah I'm here,' came the voice from the other end of the line. He sounded distant and strained.

'Are you okay? You cool to be on the phone, dude?' 

'Yeah,' Ryan sighed. He sounded like he was just sick of being sick. He was bored and fed up of being incapacitated, and just wanted to be back to normal.

'Alright, so, well.. How are you?' Geoff asked slowly. 'I just spoke to Jack,' he added quickly, in case Ryan was reluctant to talk about what was going on. 

'Uh. Shitty,' Ryan said, shifting his position on the sofa on which he was lying. Or, well, trying to lie. Every position was uncomfortable. 'I don't know when I'm gonna be back in work.'

'Shit, Ryan? What are you growing there, wings?' Geoff laughed. 

Ryan laughed nervously down the phone. 'Uh, well, no. But these things on the my head are gonna be causing quite a problem for a while.'

'Wait, what things?' Geoff suddenly went to a serious tone. Was Ryan's mutation the same as his?

'They're like, I don't know, they're like horns or something? I gotta say, I freaked out quite a lot when I first saw them. I don't know what I'm gonna do with them, man. And there isn't exactly a guide on it. But the sucky thing is they're probably gonna keep growing for a long time.'

'Dude, I'm so glad to hear you say that.'

Ryan stopped, confused. 'What?'

'Well, Jack doesn't have that problem. I don't know what his stuff all is, but I just kinda assumed that he had the same as me. It's a relief to know that you do, is my point.'

'You got little stumpy horn things, too?'

'Well, yeah..' Ryan said, trailing off. Like Geoff, he'd assumed everyone was going through the same thing. His train of thought was cut off by Geoff speaking again. 

'Good thing they're starting to go backwards though. I'm guessing if they get any bigger they're gonna just curl around.'

'Wait, that's not what I have?' Ryan was confused. He thought Geoff had the same as him? But His sure as hell weren't growing back. They were growing out.

'It isn't?'

'No! Mine are like, growing out. And they're really sharp! What the hell is this, then?'

'So you don't have a little fluffy tail either?' Geoff said hopefully. Ryan didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

'I absolutely don't have a fluffy tail. It's like, long, and.. I don't really know.' He picked up his tail near the end to examine it. It was still tender, but okay enough to pick up. He still wasn't sure what to do with it. He could kind of move it a bit, but he was positive that after getting used to it he'd have more control over it. It was a bit like having a numb limb.

'God,' Geoff whispered, half to himself. 'This is so fucked up, man. So fucked up.'

'Well, alright,' Burnie said to Geoff, holding the phone close to his head. 'See you tomorrow, dude.' He couldn't help the worry in his tone from becoming obvious.


	5. Chapter 5

It became more than clear that not everyone was suffering the same thing. Eventually, after a few months, everyone was back in work. Most of the guys were in a lot of discomfort, or pain, but they were able to work, and so they were working. Gavin had been the last to return, and it was obvious why.

Once he'd finally managed to get himself out of Meg's car, with a lot of aid, he'd carefully walked himself to the Achievement Hunter office, making sure he didn't trip, or fall, or bash himself on anything. Michael had been the first to turn to the door when he'd come in, excited to see his boi after all this time. His reaction was a half choke, half laugh at Gavin's new additions to his anatomy. Two enormous wings hung behind him. They were a little patchy, since not all of the feathers had finished growing in, but most of them were there. Feathers also hung off the end of his lower back. It was easy to forget that birds had tails until you saw them on a full-grown man. 

Gavin had been shy, and nervous, and he looked a mess as a result. His shirt had been crudely ripped down the back to make room for the wings. 

'Gavin!' Michael had said after managing to swallow the food he'd choked on. 'You'd had the beak your whole life, and now you've finally got the rest!'

Michael had gotten used to his changes quite quickly. His new, animalistic features included a long fluffy tail and big, pointy ears, both boasting fur the same colour as his hair. 

He'd found himself having to shave more often [not that he had to often, anyway] due to the addition of whiskers that kept sprouting on his face. The instincts that had come with developing cat-like features meant that his outbursts of rage caused him to hiss and arch his back, and more often than not pounce on whatever was pissing him off. His displays of instincts were very obvious, but they fit in well with his personality, so he didn't dwell on them too much. The only thing he really, really hated was his unavoidable habit of purring. 

Ray's mutation had affected him in a lot of ways. His new, long ears weren't very easy to hide, but his little fluffy tail was. He admitted that rabbits were lame, but he could live with it. The biggest problems for him came from instinctual behaviour. He was jumpy, and twitchy, and didn't like to sit in one place for too long. Around some of the other guys, he'd have to calm his nerves. Especially around Michael, since cats were a classic predator of rabbits. Another annoying factor was the fact that, while his human digestive system could still process meat, his cravings for it were next to none. He hated preparing himself for an amazing course of Taco Bell and then realising that he was actually just after salad. 

So they were the lads. All three of them had developed features of relatively small creatures. The only predator amongst them was Michael, and even then his predatory instincts weren't the main ones to affect him. Mostly it was just the cattish attitude. 

The gents were no where near as domestic. Geoff's horns had finally grown out to a decent length. The fact that they'd grown over a course of three or four months meant he suffered regular headaches, since rapid growth from the skull wasn't exactly a normal thing. Most people wouldn't usually consider a ram as a particular aggressive animal, but the rage that constantly filled Geoff since the change destroyed that preconception. He'd constantly let his anger and frustrations get the better of him, and found himself ramming his horns into any object he could just to vent it out. The wall was covered in cracks and dents that were crudely covered up, but he soon learned not to take it out on the office when he realised how useful Ryan could be.

Ryan's horns were nothing like Geoff's: he wasn't a ram like Geoff. The animal traits he'd seemed to have adopted matched those of a Longhorn bull. It meant that there was no end to the Edgar jokes, and Jack would often remind him that You're not even from Texas, dude, how come you're a longhorn. His hornspan was currently around 25 inches, but due to the rate of growth, and studying actual horns of Longhorns, there was definitely at least another ten inches to grow in. It was hard to deal with. He couldn't even make it through doorways, and would have to turn before going in. Sleeping was difficult, and the pressure it put on his neck was painful. Laurie had told him about some services that shave down bull horns, but he wasn't sure if he really wanted to go to a company catered to animals. 

To the shock of the rest of the office, Ryan never hesitated to eat beef, or steak, and would often make jokes about it. However, as time went on, his taste for it did begin to die down, and like Ray, he would find that more vegetarian dishes took his fancy more often. Like Geoff, his main instinctual issue was his temper. Bulls of any bovine variety definitely were known for charging blindly at anything they caught sight of while angry, and the horns on Ryan's head were enough to put anyone off pissing him off.

But he and Geoff quickly learned to use each other. Ryan never really had the urge to headbutt per se, but he knew that Geoff couldn't safely take it out on anyone else, and he knew he was strong enough to take the force. Once both of their horns were comfortable enough to take the weight without being painful, they'd started their little regime, and hadn't looked back since.

Jack's physical changes weren't much. His little ears were easily hidden by his mess of ginger hair that he had to cut way more often to stop it from growing out into a full-grown mane. His tail was long, but was no where near as swishy and kinetic as, say, Ryan's. Cats, and therefore their hybrids, were a lot more clever and emotive with their tails. Bovine tails tended to swish around like they had a life of their own.

His most noticeably different feature was his front teeth. Where his canines had previously fallen out, in had grown a new pair, significantly more sharp, and slightly longer. Although he kept filing them down to keep them concealed, and also to stop him from accidentally biting the inside of his goddamn lip. 

Being a top-of-the-foodchain predator meant a lot of control was needed on Jack's behalf. And it didn't help that a lion's typical menu would have bovine on it. Although Jack was good at keeping himself under control, and bringing himself out of it, sometimes he'd end up sat at his desk, his knuckles white from clenching his fists so hard, his eyes closed and his breathing paused, from just knowing that Ryan was sat right next to him. A lot of people feared that he'd be more angry than usual, but really he just felt lazier and sleepier. Geoff and Ryan were really the angry ones, Jack just always needed a nap. It was a trait he and Michael shared.

As time went by, each Hunter got more and more used to his mutation. They made life very difficult, especially as hybridisation was still very, very rare. Relying a lot more on their spouses and friends to help them through day-to-day things could be tiring, and often led to problems with feelings of guilt and uselessness. But it was the way it had to go until the problems became more commonplace.

Although hybridisation was never going to be a problem that affected the majority, it was a problem that was spreading to others. It was always worrying when someone else at Rooster Teeth would have to take a few days off, especially as the guys knew all too well that the change took place over months, not like a cheap, fictional werewolf transformation. 

But it was always a private comfort when the public would become aware of a new sprout of hybrids in some part of the country, or even the world.

One day they'd be able to leave their houses without even thinking about it, but for now, at least they had each other. Maybe some of them were natural enemies, predators, prey, companions. But that was their life now. And surely, it was only going to get better, right?


End file.
